Joel Robuchon to open Atelier restaurant in
Joel Robuchon to open Atelier restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel in New York next spring.
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Entries for July 2005
Las Vegas is in for some water troubles
Las Vegas is in for some water troubles. Surprisingly, it’s residential use that’s the problem, not the showy water displays by the casinos.
A text message love affair gone wrong
A text message love affair gone wrong. “How had we managed to speed through all the stages of an actual relationship almost solely via text message? I’d gone from butterflies to doubt to anger at his name on the screen, before we even knew each other.”
Garden State
Garden State is probably one of those movies that gets better with a second viewing. I liked it alright the first time, enough that I’m willing to give it that second shot.
And on a totally different note, when Zach Braff’s character meets Natalie Portman, she’s wearing a pair of the silver Aiwa headphones that I love and still swear by, even though they are 5 years old and all falling apart. Best pair of cheapo headphones ever.
Kevin Shay’s BigPAPI MT plugin looks frickin’ awesome
Kevin Shay’s BigPAPI MT plugin looks frickin’ awesome.
Comparison of the power law in war
Comparison of the power law in war. Statistics show that fatalities in modern warfare trend toward non-G7 terrorism patterns rather than those of conventional warfare, independent of context.
American Airlines posts first profit in 5 years
American Airlines posts first profit in 5 years by listening to cost-cutting measures suggested by employees. Does this mean we can have our pillows back now?
News flash! 17-yo kid obliterates opponents at video games
News flash! 17-yo kid obliterates opponents at video games. Ok, here’s the kicker: he’s blind.
1880s Brooklyn brownstone has swastika patterns as
1880s Brooklyn brownstone has swastika patterns as part of the wood flooring. “We turned to the landlord guy and said, ‘You haven’t fixed this?!?!’ He suggested that we could just put furniture over them. All four, in every room. And then he told us that there had been a number of Jews who’d looked at the place and ‘seemed really bothered by it.’”
Mock-up photos of the “East Village” retail
Mock-up photos of the “East Village” retail complex planned for Las Vegas. There’s even a displaced meatpacking district and Washington Square arch.
Flickr reaches the 1,000,000 member threshhold
Flickr reaches the 1,000,000 member threshhold. I wish Flickr publicized everyone’s number so that I could lord my early-adopter status over everyone in a more quantitative manner.
Google attempting to patent RSS advertising?
John Battelle points to news of Google (the author is Nelson Minar) attempting to patent the idea of automating the incorporation of targetted ads into RSS files. Here’s the application on the USPTO site. I’ve got a few questions and concerns:
Is this a joke?
Ok, bad first question since it seems unlikely that Nelson and Google would write up this application just to have a few laughs. So here’s a better question: where’s the prior art on this? The patent was filed on 12/31/2003. I floated the idea of embedding advertising into RSS ads in October 2002 and there was prior art then. But Google’s patent application covers “targeted ads” in a “syndicated, e.g., RSS, presentation format in an automated manner”. Curiously, I believe this is already covered by an older Google patent, filed in 12/2002:
The relevance of advertisements to a user’s interests is improved. In one implementation, the content of a web page is analyzed to determine a list of one or more topics associated with that web page. An advertisement is considered to be relevant to that web page if it is associated with keywords belonging to the list of one or more topics. One or more of these relevant advertisements may be provided for rendering in conjunction with the web page or related web pages.
That’s Google AdSense in a nutshell: inserting targeted ads into web documents in an automated manner. So what is it about RSS/Atom files that make them different than plain old web pages and hence not covered under the 2002 AdSense patent? Nothing. This vocabulary of “feeds” and “syndication” is still misleading. RSS/Atom files, especially as they are described in the 12/2003 patent application, are XML files that sit on a web server waiting for someone with a web browser to come along to read them, just like XHTML files:
So, people access documents written in a markup language that have been published on a Web server with a software application. If this seems familiar to you, it should. It’s called Web browsing and has nothing to do with syndication. RSS readers and newsreaders are just specialized Web browsers…
The 12/2003 application tries to explain the difference between HTML pages and “syndicated content formats” thusly:
Syndicated content, unlike web pages which are normally stored in an HTML format, are often stored and presented in what may be described as a syndicated content format. Syndicated content formats are often XML (eXtended Markup Language) based and include structured representations of content such as news articles, search results, and web log entries. Syndicated content formats are primarily intended for providing syndicated information, e.g., news headlines, weblogs, etc. in a structured format such as a list of items, with another device, e.g., a user device, usually controlling the ultimate presentation format of the items in the list. This is in contrast to HTML which usually includes a fair amount of presentation and formatting information within an HTML document such as a web page.
That’s a pretty weak explanation and sounds a lot like what a web browser (the “user device” that controls the presentation) does with XHTML files (XML-based files without a “fair amount of presentation and formatting information”). It sounds to me like Google already has this covered with their previous patent.
[Long aside: Does the prior art of embedding AdSense ads in XHTML files invalidate this patent? Patents are tricky because they don’t cover ideas, they cover specific implementations of ideas. While the 12/2003 application states that “said syndicated format is an XML compliant format” it also specifies that “said syndicated format is a format for listing items corresponding to a channel, said received information including a listing of at least two items and including for each item, a title and a link”. That is, the XML files they’re talking about have to be RSS/Atom-ish in nature. This doesn’t rule out XHTML files in theory, but it does rule out many of them in practice.
But the really tricky part with these software patents is that the implementations of ideas are written so broadly that they might as well be patents of the ideas themselves. If you look at it that way (the patent-holding companies certainly seem willing to litigate on that basis), Google has already embedded automated, targeted advertising into XML-based files. According to news.com, Google launched their AdSense service in June 2003. When the first AdSense advertisement was embedded in an XHTML file soon after that, well, there’s your prior art on the very thing that Google attempted to patent 6 months later.]
Sasha Frere-Jones on Diplo and Fernando Luis
Sasha Frere-Jones on Diplo and Fernando Luis Mattos da Matta, who is a Brazilian funk DJ.
J. Seward Johnson, Jr. recreated a bunch
J. Seward Johnson, Jr. recreated a bunch of impressionist paintings as sculptures you can walk around in. Looks very cool…the photos are from a show going on through Aug 7th at the Nassau County Museum of Art.
The science of Lance Armstrong
The science of Lance Armstrong. Between 1992 and 1999, he increased his muscle efficiency by 8 percent, a gain previously thought to be impossible.
Steven Shapin reviews Tom Standage’s A History
Steven Shapin reviews Tom Standage’s A History of the World in 6 Glasses, a “social life of beverages”. Standage is one of my favorite technology/culture writers; he wrote about the telegraph in The Victorian Internet.
Why do you get stuck at O’Hare for hours?
Why do you get stuck at O’Hare for hours?. The major airlines’ hubs are too “hubby”; that is, to make all the connecting flights work, they overload the airports with takeoffs at peak times, making several flights a day chronically (and purposely) late.
Latest David Sedaris in the New Yorker
Latest David Sedaris in the New Yorker. What do you care what it’s about? It’s David Sedaris. Just go read.
9 Songs
Sex is often a significant part of human relationships, so why shouldn’t films reflect that and depict it more accurately? That’s the question director Michael Winterbottom tries to answer with 9 Songs, and he does so fairly successfully. The film is rated NC-17 and features fairly graphic sex (penetration, oral sex, bodily fluids), which was disappointing at first because I thought Winterbottom was using sex for the same purpose as most directors do (cheap titillation) but the choice made more sense as the movie progressed and, thanks in large part to the two lead actors, contributed greatly to the feeling of relationship in the film.
Wired’s got a “10 years of the web”
Wired’s got a “10 years of the web” thing going on in their August 2005 issue. Web nostalgia is sooooo yesterday…
Is Owen Wilson the secret factor to Wes Anderson’s success?
Is Owen Wilson the secret factor to Wes Anderson’s success?. I’m of the opinion that The Life Aquatic didn’t suck, but I can see the point here.
Winners of the 2005 Faux Faulker Contest
Winners of the 2005 Faux Faulker Contest. Winner: “The Administration and the Fury: If William Faulkner were writing on the Bush White House”.
NY Times on professional miniature golf
NY Times on professional miniature golf. I won a mini golf tournament once and even have a trophy to prove it.
Steven Johnson’s open letter to Hillary Clinton
Steven Johnson’s open letter to Hillary Clinton regarding her call for a Congressional investigation about the effects of video games on children. “I know a congressional investigation into [the violence and hostility in high school] football won’t play so well with those crucial swing voters, but it makes about as much sense as an investigation into the pressing issue that is Xbox and PlayStation 2.”
The NY Times picks some good bottles
The NY Times picks some good bottles of wine for under $10. For those of you who want to move up from the Two Buck Chuck a little.
A citizen’s guide to refusing NYC subway searches
A citizen’s guide to refusing NYC subway searches. “As innocent citizens become increasingly accustomed to being searched by the police, politicians and police agencies are empowered to further expand the number of places where all are considered guilty until proven innocent.”
NYC taxi agency approves the use of
NYC taxi agency approves the use of hybrid cars as taxis. Downside: the hybrids have less leg room than the vast Crown Vic.
Scott Berkun on how to learn from your mistakes
Scott Berkun on how to learn from your mistakes. “We’re taught in school, in our families, or at work to feel guilty about failure and to do whatever we can to avoid mistakes.”
The olden days
Yesterday was web nostalgia day on kottke.org, with nearly the entire day’s worth of remaindered links dedicated to blogging old school web memes and information as if I had just seen them for the first time. No reason really, just a bit of fun.
Oh, and something[1] tells me that the Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe email is a fake.
[1] “Something” being the gigantic amount of email I received yesterday after posting this link. For a good 2 hours or so, an email arrived every two minutes telling me that the cookie thing was a hoax. It was kind of incredible, by far the most feedback I’ve gotten in several months. Boy, you folks don’t think much of me, do you? ;)
Another in Edward Jay Epstein’s series on
Another in Edward Jay Epstein’s series on the business of Hollywood. This one’s about the secret industry reports done by the MPAA that reveal hard-to-come-by statistics about how much Hollywood is making from which businesses.
Venture capitalist Howard Anderson on why he’s
Venture capitalist Howard Anderson on why he’s leaving the VC game. Rational markets and an over-supply of technology are two of his reasons.
The Hyperreal home page has lots of
The Hyperreal home page has lots of information about rave music, rave culture, and drugs.
Sucksters Polly Ester and Terry Colon on
Sucksters Polly Ester and Terry Colon on Bubble Goo in the always excellent Filler.
Cello is a graphical WWW browser like Mosaic
Cello is a graphical WWW browser like Mosaic. “Cello runs under Microsoft Windows on any IBM PC with a 386SX chip or better. While we have run Cello with only 2MB of RAM on a 386SX-16 machine, we think you’ll like it better on a machine with more memory and a faster chip.”
Walter Miller’s Home page is the best
Walter Miller’s Home page is the best personal home page on the WWW. “Yes Im in an abbusive relatonship. Hes in a whelchair but Im still scared of him. I know it sounds dumb. Some of his threats are to rip my lungs out throuhg my anes, then tie them around my head like Micky Mouse ears.”
This animation of a dancing baby is fun to watch
This animation of a dancing baby is fun to watch. Email this one to your friends!
This one guy tried to get the
This one guy tried to get the word “sweatshop” printed on his custom Nike shoes and Nike wouldn’t let him. “The Personal iD on my custom ZOOM XC USA running shoes was the word ‘sweatshop.’ Sweatshop is not: 1) another’s party’s trademark, 2) the name of an athlete, 3) blank, or 4) profanity. I choose the iD because I wanted to remember the toil and labor of the children that made my shoes. Could you please ship them to me immediately.”
The Hot or Not site lets you
The Hot or Not site lets you rate people’s pictures on a scale of 1 to 10. You can even upload your own picture to be rated.
Justin Hall documents his entire life on
Justin Hall documents his entire life on his WWW page, Justin’s Links from the Underground.
WiReD magazine on the Mosaic WWW browser
WiReD magazine on the Mosaic WWW browser and how it is “well on its way to becoming the world’s standard interface”. “Mosaic is the celebrated graphical ‘browser’ that allows users to travel through the world of electronic information using a point-and-click interface. Mosaic’s charming appearance encourages users to load their own documents onto the Net, including color photos, sound bites, video clips, and hypertext ‘links’ to other documents. By following the links — click, and the linked document appears — you can travel through the online world along paths of whim and intuition.”
Hahaha! Look at all those hampsters dancing
Hahaha! Look at all those hampsters dancing. Be sure to turn up the sound on this one!
Apparently, the Internet has a very last
Apparently, the Internet has a very last page after which, you’re all done. LOL, ROFL!
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